Is your student a budding musician, or just someone who enjoys the beauty of
music? Either way, you won’t want to miss this week’s Homeschool
Heartbeat, as your host Mike Smith chats with Mia Laity, a homeschool graduate
who is now a professional musician.

Mike Smith: My guest today is Mia Laity. She’s a homeschool
graduate and a professional violinist. Mia, welcome to our program today!

Mia Laity: Thank you for having me.

Chopsticks to concertos [0:26]

Mike: Mia, you clearly love music, so much that you made a career
out of it. What is it about music that you enjoy so much?

Mia: I just love how different sounds and variations on those
sounds can be put together to create different textures and different worlds. And
that how these worlds also change over the span of a song or a piece. And I really
love enjoying and exploring how each note takes meaning from the notes that came
before it and the notes that are going to come afterwards.

Mike: Well, let me ask you a question: Was there a specific
moment in your life when you discovered you really wanted to be this professional
violinist?

Mia: Well, I guess the most specific moment that I could give you
is one from when I was maybe 2 and a half. My family was living in Texas and I saw a
Mariachi band playing at a grocery store. And later at home, I got a wooden spoon and
chopstick from the kitchen and I was pretending to play violin, and I was being the
violinist in the band. Because after that, when I actually started playing, I
gravitated to it so much that playing violin was so much of something that I did that
my career had already started before I realized that I had one, if that makes sense.
I just wanted to play and have the opportunity to play.

Mike: It does. How old were you then?

Mia: When I actually started playing, I was 3.

Mike: Wow.

Beyond the notes and rhythms [1:49]

Mike: Mia, why did your parents decide to homeschool you, and
what was that like for you?

Mia: It was a combination of things. I was taken out of public
school in second grade.

But first of all, my mom has always taken a very active role in my development and
education as a person. And she was actually already teaching me at home while I was
in school. So she was the one who taught me how to read. She was the one who did math
with me. And so she was really already homeschooling me before we had officially
declared it.

And I think secondly, the other thing that really led to my parents making that
commitment was that the other families we were meeting through violin lessons and
group classes were homeschooling. And so I think that for my parents, making that
that commitment made a lot of sense, and fortunately for us we already had a
homeschooling community to access.

Mike: How did homeschooling pave the way for your career in
music?

Mia: First of all, it gave me so much flexibility, as
homeschoolers we know that teaching to just one child can actually be much more
time-efficient than when you’re trying to take into account a whole classroom
of maybe 20 kids. So I had a lot more time to practice while still learning
everything that I needed to learn. And we could also rearrange my schedule without
sacrificing education. So I remember one time we timed my so-called spring break to
coincide with the week before a concerto competition, when I would already be
preoccupied. So it was a win-win: I had more time to prepare, and then I also knew
that I was really focused on my schooling. So nothing was sacrificed.

And also, I think that homeschooling really encouraged me with being curious and
being self-starting, being motivated to analyze information and explore further
applications past the textbook lessons. And that’s really carried over to
music, because a lot of what makes music so special is what happens beyond learning
the notes and rhythms and what’s on the page—as a teacher of mine
actually told me, asking yourself, “How can this be more beautiful?” and
making that happen. And a lot of that kind of work has to be inspired by your own
initiative, and I think that homeschooling with my mom really fostered that in
me.

Practice, practice, practice [4:06]

Mike: Mia, tell us about your life as a professional violinist.
What does a typical day look like for you?

Mia: Well, it differs, but right now I’m playing with an
orchestra called The Orchestra Now. And for a typical day in The Orchestra Now, for
instance, we’ll have a rehearsal in the morning, and then a seminar/discussion
meeting about the pieces that have been programmed this evening, and then another
rehearsal. And some of these rehearsals are with the big group, and some of them are
with a smaller group within the orchestra—so maybe just violins, or just
strings. And all my other free time throughout the day is for practicing that music
and the music that is to come, and then figuring out what projects that I want to do
on my own on the side.

Mike: On average, every day, how much time do you spend playing
the violin?

Mia: Six to eight hours.

Mike: Woah. What about your fingers?

Mia: Well, they’ve built up a little bit of the muscles, I
think, over the years, so you don’t go from 0 to 100 just like that. So
it’s more of an endurance game.

Mike: Is there a concert or performance that’s been the
most meaningful to you, and why?

Mia: That’s a tough one. If I had to just pick one, I would
say it was a very special concert for me in 2009. I was invited to play in Carnegie
Hall as part of the New York String Orchestra seminar. It was a really special
program. And that concert, I was 17. So being 17, in that historic hall for the first
time, and we were also playing Beethoven’s 5[th symphony], which is a huge
pillar of classical music, and I was under the musical genius of Jamie Laredo. It was
Christmas in New York City. It was something truly special and awe-inspiring and it
really made me take pause and think, “Wow, this is what I do. This is really,
really something special.”

When I grew up I was always seeing concerts, seeing videos of concerts in Carnegie
Hall, and hearing about it. And there’s that old saying that’s always
going around: “Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice,
practice.” And so of course, that was definitely on my mind when I walked into
that stage.

Facing your fears [6:12]

Mike: Mia, what are some of the biggest challenges you had to
overcome to get where you are today?

Mia: Well, I’d have to say stage fright, to be honest. I
grew up pretty fearless, on the stage with my violin. I didn’t really get
nervous, probably because I didn’t really think about it. It just felt really
natural.

But when I got older, and fairly recently actually, I got caught in the trap of
assuming that every moment in a performance was completely in my control. And then I
would get frustrated and very upset with myself if something didn’t happen
exactly how I planned it. And that feeling of not being in control and of being
powerless on stage became really disabling. And eventually it was at the point where
I was getting nervous about the possibility that I would get nervous and not sound
the way I wanted to—which was a terrible, self-fulfilling spiral.

Eventually, and this was over a pretty long span of time, and with the support and
encouragement of other musicians and also through a series of lower-pressure
performances where I felt safe, I eventually got to the place where I could accept
that I didn’t need to control everything, and to trust the preparation, have
faith in the practice and faith in the moment, and to embrace the spontaneity of
performance, because that’s actually one of the most beautiful things when your
performing is that it’s this piece of music is coming to life in that moment
for the audience and it doesn’t need to be a micromanaged rehash. So I had to
really come to terms and have peace with that.

Mike: Mia, I’m assuming that when you play a piece, that
you’re trying to hit every note perfectly. Is that right?

Mia: Yes.

Mike: Have you ever been able to do it?

Mia: Well, I guess there’s always more levels that it could
be a little better. But I’ve found that—I have had performances where
I’ve played every note, but I’ve found that when I was obsessed with and
only focused on that, the music lost a little bit of specialness and of magic,
because it sounds like somebody just reciting a speech instead of really meaning
every word.

And so, if you focus instead on really communicating with the essence of that
piece of music, and meaning every note that you play in musicality, it will actually
come around that each note was in fact perfectly in tune.

Mike: Well, that’s intriguing, and it’s really
interesting. But what’s the best part of being a professional musician, for
you?

Mia: For me, it’s getting to play music and getting come up
with new ways to share it with people and then obviously the sharing of it is a
really wonderful opportunity.

Mike: So you’re really expressing yourself, in a way, as
you play the violin, aren’t you?

Mia: Yes, absolutely.

Never stop exploring [9:03]

Mike: Mia, what do you hope to accomplish with your musical
career as you go forward?

Mia: I am really, really interested in creating different
opportunities for people to experience music in a unique way. So I really love
cross-genre collaborations and alternative venues. And I actually have some projects
in the works that I’m hoping will create total immersive experiences for the
audience. So I’m hoping in the rest of my career to create new ways for
audiences to interact with and really totally experience music.

Mike: Well, that’s fantastic. Now, we have some young
musicians listening out there today. So what advice would you have for them?

Mia: I would say never stop exploring. There are always new ways
to make sounds and different ways to play things. And listen to your teachers,
because they can really guide you.

Mike: What else would you suggest?

Mia: I would suggest trying to take advantage of every
opportunity. I mean, obviously you can overdo it, and you don’t want to burn
yourself out or compromise what you are doing with your music. But some of the things
that I think I learned the most from and that I enjoyed the most were things that I
really wasn’t expecting to get to do. So you have to say yes to things.

Mike: What would one example be of that?

Mia: I went to the Manhattan School of Music for my undergrad,
and I was only in classical—and that’s really only where my comfort zone
is. And Manhattan School of Music has this really amazing jazz program, and they have
one class that allows cross-registration. So it was Jazz for Classical String
Players. And that was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life, is
play without music, because it’s different than playing by memory when
you’re actually making up the notes that are going to come out. And the
improvisation that I’d never done before was so scary, but it made me see music
in a completely new light that I’d never ever considered before.

Mike: Well Mia, we really have enjoyed having you be with us this
week on this program. And thank you for sharing your story with us. And until next
time, I’m Mike Smith.

Mia Laity

Mia Laity is a violinist dedicated to creating eclectic avenues for music to intersect with everyday life, infusing the classical music tradition with young electricity. She is an active performer in the New York City area, appearing regularly in Groupmuses and also in performance with conductor-less string ensemble Shattered Glass and the Chamber Music Society of North Jersey.

Mia graduated from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied violin performance with Laurie Smukler and chamber music with Sylvia Rosenberg. She is an alumna of Kneisel Hall, Aspen Music Festival and School, New York String Orchestra Seminar, From the Top, and the National Orchestral Institute.

Mia has performed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, David Geffen (formerly Avery Fischer) Hall, Disney Hall, Los Angeles Museum of Art, Town Hall NYC, and Carnegie Hall. She is currently a violinist in New York’s new orchestra, The Orchestra Now.